Are the viral Erewhon smoothies actually good?

"Let's start with the obvious: all four drinks-the strawberry glaze skin, the Malibu mango, the coconut cloud and the vanilla matcha-looked beautiful. The colors were magnificent, especially the blue and the green (which couldn't be said about the flavors themselves, but more on that later). The Time Out team immediately scooped up some of the blue coconut cloud smoothie ($24), made with almond milk, pineapple, banana, avocado, almond butter, coconut cream and enhanced with vanilla collagen and blue spirulina (all organic)."

"The consensus was that the drink was a bit too chalky, likely the result of the ingredient combo (almond, banana and coconut may be healthy but do they need to all show up at once?). As one team member put it... "It just doesn't taste right." It does look magnificent on Instagram, at least. Things got better with Bieber's go-to, the strawberry glaze skin smoothie ($24), which tasted like an actual smoothie should."

"Next up was the Malibu mango smoothie ($25.25), which ended up being, by unanimous consensus, the best of the bunch. Interestingly, it was also the one with the fewest ingredients (mango, pineapple, banana, vanilla collagen, coconut cream, lion's mane mushroom). It got us wondering: what makes a smoothie good or bad? Although these drinks are marketed as healthy, the extra "functional" ingredients in the other two smoothies made them chalky and heavy and, if we're being honest, not all that healthy-feeling."

All four smoothies looked visually striking, with especially vivid blue and green hues. The blue coconut cloud combined almond milk, pineapple, banana, avocado, almond butter, coconut cream, vanilla collagen and blue spirulina, and tasted overly chalky and discordant. The strawberry glaze skin, containing almond milk, strawberries, bananas, avocado, dates, maple syrup, collagen peptides, sea moss gel and coconut cream, tasted strawberry-forward and enjoyable. The Malibu mango, made with mango, pineapple, banana, vanilla collagen, coconut cream and lion's mane, was unanimously judged best and had the fewest ingredients. Extra functional ingredients in some drinks produced heavy, chalky textures, while the vanilla matcha was thinner and more watery.

Read at Time Out New York